Replying to ICANN's draft 2009 Operating Plan and Budget, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee submitted comments last week vying for its piece of the estimated $60 million ICANN revenue pie. But the interesting story is not the dollar amounts requested by SSAC, rather their request for a specific line item for “Management of certificates for the addressing system (RPKI).” This request to put ICANN in the middle of controlling routing security raises many governance issues.
Two US Government contractors and the National Institute of Science and Technology have released a white paper, “Statement of Needed Internet Capability,” detailing possible alternatives and considerations for a Trust Anchor Repository (TAR) to support DNSSEC deployment. Importantly, the document highlights policy choices, and raises interesting questions about a Global TAR as a solution for helping secure the DNS and the role of national security interests.
Public Interest Registry wants to implement DNSSEC in the .org zone. According to ICANN's regulations, this is a “new registry service” and it has to be reviewed by a committee of technical experts to assess its impact on the security and stability of the Internet before it can be approved. The expert panel released its report on PIR's proposal June 4. The report, like so many things associated with DNSSEC implementation, has fascinating implications which are buried in technical details that few people will understand. One conclusion that could be drawn from the report is that the US government's insistence on maintaining control of the root zone file is actually decreasing Internet security.
This is a book about Internet governance, despite the fact that the author refuses to use that term and, near the end of the book, rather testily distances himself from the Internet Governance Forum and related attempts to develop and reform global Internet governance. Despite that, the book is a well-researched and well-constructed analysis of the architectural issues underlying some of the policy problems (and opportunities) facing the Internet. It is worth reading – and worth critiquing – for the debate will shed light on some of the key choices we have to make regarding the governance of the Internet. Although Zittrain inevitably couches his argument in terms of technical architecture, “tools” and “code,” the problems the book raises are often more political than technical. His analysis suffers a bit from the lack of a more sustained and self-conscious engagement with the political, international and institutional aspects of Internet governance. This blog post conducts a full review.
In early April, Public Interest Registry (PIR) submitted a service proposal announcing its intention to begin offering secure DNS extensions in the 4th quarter of 2008, and seeking to amend its registry contract with ICANN. If approved by ICANN, .ORG would likely be the Internet’s first secure production gTLD zone. One interesting wrinkle is PIR's proposed language regarding data escrow of DNSSEC related data, specifically key material. PIR's request is another testament to the strength of a distributed, and not centralized, approach to DNSSEC.
A briefing last month to House and Senate members and staff of the Homeland Security Committee by VeriSign’s Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and Standards, the recent chair of the NRC’s Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the US, and a former Chief Scientist of the FCC, raises some interesting questions and concerns about governance, competition policy, and civil liberties. In the joint presentation on international and domestic defenses against cyber attacks and supporting documents, VeriSign’s Tony Rutkowski argued that, “the widespread deployment of wireless platforms, Internet Protocol networks, and application-based services – combined with a government switch from common carrier to information services regulation by imposing only minimal public network service mandates – has produced some significant “cybersecurity” vulnerabilities.” According to Rutkowski, the absence of a built-in trust mechanism across the many providers that make up the communications network infrastructure worldwide is the core problem. In light of this, he said Congress should require the FCC, FTC and other agencies to institute a universal identity through a global Trusted Service Provider or SPID (Service Profile IDentifier) system.
Declaring Independence in Cyberspace tells the story of the struggle between governments and the global Internet community over control of the Internet registries (IANA). It offers new insights into a pressing question with profound implications: is state sovereignty the immutable foundation of global governance, or can new technological capabilities change the model?
“This is a book that needed to be written, and no one is better placed to write it than Milton Mueller. This full, rigorous account provides researchers and policymakers with a precious resource on global internet governance.”
Jan Aart Scholte, Leiden University